YouTube search terms to be sold by Google

Search engine giant takes advantage of possible video revenue

You will now be able to buy keywords on YouTube, as Google finally applies its most famous money-making scheme to the video sharing site that it owns.

'Sponsored Videos' lets users promote videos by buying keywords – so, for instance, if somebody types in Britney Spears, her record company could bid towards that search term in order to make sure that her YouTube channel comes first, rather than video of her more inopportune paparazzi moments.

Google has created the automated tools that facilitates bidding on the terms – and will now no doubt be expecting major revenue generated by companies wanting to put their wares in the public consciousness.

Intricate

"In hindsight, it is a natural transition for YouTube to make, YouTube's Matthew Liu told the launch conference.

"We've been working on this for months. The key was, we wanted to make sure we got it right. There are a lot of intricacies involved. YouTube is a video discovery platform. We've been integrating with Google AdWords for some time, and now we're at a place where it can be win and win."

YouTube has 80 million users and the lion's share of the online video market, but generating money from that has not proved easy.

The advent of bidding for keywords could well change that, especially in conjunction with the shopping links that Google has also recently brought into YouTube pages.